Words worth understanding
Start with the thought in plain English. Then explore the imagery, a practical example, when to use it, and what the saying does not mean.
4,000 entries with editorial explanations. The wider collection also contains entries still awaiting an individual interpretation.
proverb · Traditional
The saying turns glass into lass by removing G, then lass into ass by removing L. The letter game uses the result to mock the person described.
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The saying mocks a husband for sharing news with his wife, implying that experience would teach silence. A critical reading questions the distrust and gender stereotype behind it.
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The saying advises winning a mother’s goodwill when seeking a relationship with her daughter. It treats family approval as useful, but such approval cannot replace the daughter’s own wishes and consent.
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Failing to honour a wife is pictured as dishonouring oneself. The saying connects treatment of a partner with the person’s own conduct.
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A parent with one child inevitably driving that child mad gives concentrated attention a severe negative prediction. The saying criticises a possible family dynamic through a clinical-sounding label.
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The saying makes love include a person’s dirt. As an analogy, affection can acknowledge imperfections rather than require an idealised person.
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Choosing a relationship chiefly for wealth may create obligations or dependence that restrict personal choice. Selling liberty makes the material gain sound like a costly exchange.
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Staying quiet described as consenting assigns agreement to a lack of speech. The saying presents silence as a substitute for expressed choice.
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People can care for one another while disagreeing in thought or judgement. A difference of opinion need not erase shared affection, respect or purpose.
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The saying exaggerates the anger of a woman who has been rejected or slighted by comparing it with hell. It gives a grievance a dramatic, gendered form.
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Home is the place or relationship where someone feels they belong. Emotional attachment can matter more than an address or the place where they were born.
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An intense beginning may be followed by a rapid loss of feeling. The hot-and-cold contrast warns against treating initial excitement as proof of lasting attachment, without claiming that strong affection must fade or that slower affection is superior.
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A kind man unwilling to give his wife to friends contrasts generosity with a purported limit. The saying frames a spouse as something that could be offered.
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Relatives helping each other asked to be beyond harm gives mutual support a strongly protective value. The saying celebrates care through an exaggerated question.
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The saying links love with allowing someone to leave, then treats a return as proof of belonging. A careful reading values freedom while questioning the ownership and proof claims.
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Marrying a monkey for wealth and retaining the monkey after the money goes criticises a relationship chosen chiefly for possessions. The animal insult makes the remaining relationship the consequence.
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Practising love is said to turn an adversary into a friend. The saying expresses hope that care can transform an antagonistic relationship.
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The saying warns against marrying in May because older sayings call it unlucky. Its appeal to inherited words is not evidence that the month harms a relationship.
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The saying makes a beggar and king equal in love. It imagines affection crossing a contrast of wealth and rank.
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The saying calls courage useless before love and death. It emphasises experiences that determination alone may not control.
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The saying assigns wisdom to the husband and gentleness to the wife as complementary ideals. It is a gendered allocation of virtues, not evidence that either quality belongs only to one partner.
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Women and men described as alike in seeking pleasure challenge a gender distinction in desire. The saying gives a shared pursuit priority over the two categories.
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Staying single preferred to an unsuitable marriage gives relationship quality priority over formal status. The saying questions pressure to marry at any cost.
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Forgiving described as easier than forgetting separates a response to harm from loss of its memory. The saying acknowledges that remembrance may remain.
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